


In this ending

by mercuryhatter



Series: Fallen Dionysus 'verse [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, everyone dies because canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mirror for "A risen Apollo..." from Grantaire's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In this ending

**Author's Note:**

> This one seems kind of melodramatic and I'm really not quite sure about the quality, but Grantaire is much harder to write for me for some reason. I hope I've managed to convey the differences in how Enjolras and Grantaire view themselves and each other between these two fics, especially with their perceptions of the death scene.

Grantaire did not know how long he’d been living in darkness before Enjolras burst into his life like the sun god he so closely resembled. Grantaire hadn’t even been sure that the boy had been real at first-- the green fairy had not always been his most truthful mistress-- and after a while he decided he didn’t care. He held tighter to his bottles in case Enjolras was their creation and when he stumbled home at night he would cast longing glances at his dusty box of art supplies, wishing that he trusted his unsteady hands to do a painting of his Apollo justice.  
  
Gradually drink and a progressive descent into hopelessness led Grantaire to speak up during the meetings that he had thus far only haunted, the enigmatic drunk that wasn’t worth a second glance so long as he was quiet and didn’t pass out in anyone’s way. After he started talking, with the bitterness held inside him poured liberally into each word, he somehow became Enjolras’ foil without meaning to, taking each of the shining words he loved so well only to hone their edges and throw them back with vitriolic force. He had a vague idea that as long as he would never earn Enjolras’ regard, it was at least better to earn his fury and his hatred. He took pleasure in seeing the archangel before him dodge each insult Grantaire threw with a grace that never faltered. It was nice to see that at least one person in this world was incorruptible.  
  
Which is why Grantaire was terrified when Enjolras approached him one night, to castigate him, he thought at first, but then there was a hand on his shoulder and a look in Enjolras’ eyes that was very different from the imperious expression that marble face usually held.  
  
Where had he seen that look before?  
  
He couldn’t remember. His memory was spotty to begin with, and there were times he dared not revisit, many-colored times that touched too close to the dark abyss that had existed before he found Enjolras to latch onto. This look, whatever it was, belonged to those times, and so Grantaire did not chase after the memory, but took another drink to chase it back where it belonged, and waited for Enjolras to speak.  
  
He was still half-expecting some sort of reproach, but instead Enjolras cleared his throat, shifted uncomfortably, and sat down next to Grantaire.  
  
Grantaire looked around in amazement. The meeting had been over for a quarter of an hour and the cafe was nearly empty, which was the only factor that lent any credence at all to the current scene. For a moment, everything was frozen and fragile and hopeful, but then, Enjolras appeared to lose some sort of resolve, and stood up abruptly to leave.  
  
Grantaire, without fully being conscious of his own actions, reached out to seize Enjolras’ hand.  
  
Later, he marveled at how small the catalyst had been. Just the touch of hands in a moment of carelessness, and the face which had been threatening to return to its normal marble repose burst wide open for Grantaire only to see.  
  
He didn’t like to see it. He didn’t want to be the cause of such vulnerability, he didn’t want to drag an angel down to the land of men, but sometimes men are selfish, and the way Grantaire stood up to kiss Enjolras then was the most selfish thing he had ever done.  
  
He expected to be shoved away, but instead he was pulled roughly closer by seeking hands, the brevity of the kiss more than made up for in bruising intensity. Grantaire sagged in Enjolras’ arms until those arms were the only thing in the world holding him upright, and Enjolras kissed his way into him, relentlessly seeking and finding and taking.  
  
From there, through a process slow as glaciers, he and Enjolras gravitated together. More and more of Grantaire’s personal effects found their way to Enjolras’ apartment until Grantaire’s own rooms were all but abandoned. Enjolras one day came to a meeting wearing one of Grantaire’s ties, and another, with his boots. Publicly, very little changed-- they seemed constantly incapable of refraining from disagreement, and sometimes the arguments escalated from philosophical to personal. Enjolras would go home with Combeferre, or Grantaire would stubbornly refuse to be moved from the table he would inevitably pass out upon, and for days the air would crackle with tension between them. But privately, when they weren’t arguing, they were so close Grantaire was sure that atoms were being exchanged between them. They communicated better with kisses than with words, and through kisses Grantaire was granted knowledge of Enjolras’ fear, his doubts, his absolute exhaustion on those nights when he’d ran out of fervor to keep him running. Grantaire would respond by giving everything that was within his power to give, but then, that was really nothing new. What Enjolras sometimes didn’t understand was that there were things that Grantaire was incapable of giving.  
  
A year after their first earth-shaking kiss in the Musain, Grantaire finally pulled out the box that held his long-abandoned brush and paints, the box that had been taunting him ever since he’d discovered Enjolras. There were still some paints that had not dried up with time, and with more than thirty-six wine-free hours behind him, Grantaire took a brush cautiously in his hand, mixing together the goldenrod and the white to achieve the exact color of his lover’s hair.  
  
Enjolras found him hours later, hands stained with paint that was then transferred to his face as Grantaire made an effort to hide his tears. He wept as Enjolras went down on his knees to hold him, fighting through sobs to babble about his hands, his hands, he couldn’t hold them steady enough to paint, they shook as wildly as wheat under high wind, they were not his hands to control anymore, they belonged to the bottle, they would never be his hands again. Enjolras took those hands, the shaking hands that Grantaire was staring at in utter horror, and pressed them into his chest in a crushing, steadying grip. Grantaire’s head dropped heavily to Enjolras’ shoulder as he cried, and Enjolras dropped kiss after kiss into his wild hair.  
  
Grantaire thought that maybe Enjolras understood a bit better after that. At least, he stopped looking quite so angry when Grantaire got too friendly with his bottle, and simply looked sad when Grantaire caught him looking. Grantaire tried hard every time to kiss the sadness from his lover’s face, but he felt that he could taste it on his tongue as surely as Enjolras could taste the absinthe burning on Grantaire’s.  
  
Grantaire was no longer surprised when he failed his Orestes, and he wondered at the other man’s capacity to be surprised and hurt at every offense as if it were the first. What happened at Barriere du Maine had seemed the least of his offenses to Grantaire, if only for the reasoning behind the failure: would Enjolras really rather have Grantaire entice others to the barricade with false words? Apparently so, because after that the day of the battle loomed closer and closer and still Enjolras had not spared him more than a contemptuous look. Grantaire thought he might go mad, or simply die: the simple knowledge that he would never again press into Enjolras’ lips one of those kisses that had been expressive as a novel before his lover became a martyr threatened to kill him all by itself. But it did not; he lived long enough to have Enjolras’ disdain reaffirmed, and to give him one more reason for it. He lived long enough to thank anyone who might be listening that he woke in time to view the scene that nearly stopped his heart right on the spot: Enjolras, as Apollo once again, standing tall and proud with what seemed like all the bayonets in France pointed at him. God, but he burned so brightly, he made Grantaire understand what it was to believe in something with a fervor that would lead one to one’s death with a smile.  
  
After seeing that everything was suddenly very simple. He stood without thinking, and when he declared himself “one of them” it was with more sincerity than he’d ever felt in his life.  
  
He reached for Enjolras, filled with a terrible hope that his supplications would be accepted.  
  
“Do you permit it?” he asked, and sunrise broke across Enjolras’ face; when their hands touched Grantaire felt suffused with fire. He didn’t feel the gunshots when they pierced him, didn’t feel the desperate grapple of Enjolras’ hands as they tried one last time to keep him standing.  
  
 _In this ending, we are made perfect._


End file.
